The ongoing troubles with contaminated Russian oil in the Druzhba pipeline and Ust-Luga port have cut Russia's oil exports by 3.22% in May as compared to April, while oil output declined by 1.1%, Interfax and Vedomosti daily reported on June 3 citing the CDU TEK official industry data.

As reported in May, transit of Russian oil via Druzhba pipeline has not yet been resumed due to persisting technical problems in Poland and Germany, and uncertainty over mechanisms of compensation for botched supplied of crude to European refineries.

The pipeline exports dived by 37% in May, which was only partly compensated by growth of maritime oil exports that grew by 15%. Russian oil majors Rosneft, Tatneft, and Gazprom Neft saw exports decline the most by 10%, 69%, and 24% respectively.

In the meantime Lukoil and Surgutneftegaz (Surgut) increased exports by 21% and 14% respectively, with Surgut completely halting pipeline exports and boosting sea exports by a third. Russia's largest crude producer Rosneft saw its pipeline exports dive by 25%, while increasing sea shipments only by 6.5%.

Exports of oil to Poland and Germany were effectively zero, while exports to Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary dropped by 60%. The ports of Primorsk and Novorossiysk increased their throughput by 28% and 31%, respectively.

In the meantime, a separate report by Reuters claimed that Russian refineries and buyers in sea ports could suffer the most from the reported plans of pipeline monopoly Transneft to pump back 1.3mn of contaminated oil from Belarus. 

Sources told Reuters that botched oil from Belarus could make its way into Unecha-Samara and Polotsk-Yaroslavl domestic pipelines, to be mixed with clean oil and be stored in regional storage facilities, which could hurt the throughput of refineries in European and Southern parts of Russia, as well as in Primorsk port.